Shloka Mohanty Shloka Mohanty

Letter Writing Game

This is a project I want to do eventually, but it will take time, and more emotional vulnerability on my part. With the final deadline, it's hard to do so. On 9th November, I came across this letter that someone wrote to me on my 19th birthday. The nature of this letter focused more on how I made them feel and on memories of our relationship, rather than on who I am as a person. I started reading a lot of other letters that I’ve gotten, and most of them are of that nature. I wanted to explore the concept of perception, specifically how we see ourselves vs. how others see us. I was trying to pitch it to Arjun for the Hypercinema project. I was thinking of a text-based 3D space—a park of sorts—where you walk through, and Arjun and I will use letters, objects, and other things people have given us, mapping them to different relationships across the park. The idea didn’t tell much of a story, nor did it necessarily offer much in terms of relationships, as it is more about ourselves. Then I thought of a way to collect data by using one word each and mapping it out. Arjun pointed out that the idea didn’t make much sense, since someone could say “cute” and it could be mapped to friends and parents, and given how data collection works, you can’t necessarily predict its nature. So we thought about it further, and the conversation quickly got frustrating. Arjun also said that if I’m really attached to this idea, I should work on this project myself.

I ended up thinking further into what I really wanted to convey. I started thinking about shows I have watched and the relationships in shows where two people see each other for who they are: ‘Fleabag’ and the ‘Priest’, ‘Connell’ and ‘Marianne’. I also thought of the fact that the ‘Priest’ from ‘Fleabag’ entered ‘Fleabag’s life as a manic pixie dream boy archetype, but eventually, we see his character. I thought of the show ‘Bear’, and then I realised Claire’s role also fit the manic pixie dream girl archetype. I started thinking of the nature of most relationships, and most people don’t really see you for who you are, they mostly love you for how you make them feel. I thought of the nature of letters. People mostly give letters on very specific occasions like birthdays, Valentine’s, or even when someone close to them passes away. There’s a particular type of novelty to letters. People don’t write letters otherwise. Then I came up with the idea of creating a letter-writing game. The player gets the option to select a character, an occasion or no occasion, and a bunch of phrases to choose from to construct the letter. Based on the letter, the person would get a response. If the nature of the letters is such that it’s less about loving the person for who they are and more about loving the idea of the person—the theme—the background becomes thematically darker. Objects such as an ashtray or other items start appearing, and the responses get vaguer. The person who writes loses once they stop getting responses. It is placed in a space such as a living room or kitchen counter so you can see the change depending on the occasion. I’m not entirely sure of the mechanics —whether I want to make this software or a physical interface. I plan to practice writing letters over winter break as and when I get time, and to build on the character and the permutations and combinations of receiving the response. Alanna told me to check out the game ‘Tender Creature Comfort’, ‘Tracery’ library in JavaScript and Twine. Patrick told me to prototype part of the game feature in ICM and consider connecting an LLM.

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